Roanoke's severely stripped-down Mill Mountain Theatre has overcome the debt problems that forced it to suddenly shut down last year, board members said Thursday.

"We have resolved our long-term debt issues to the satisfaction of everybody involved," said executive committee member Cynthia Lawrence. "Any money that's given to the theater will not go toward debt service at all. That's done."

"We are definitely operating in the black," said board member George Anderson.

The regional institution intends to launch a $2 million fundraising campaign this summer with an eye toward reopening in 2012 with a full year's season. The launch of the reinvented Mill Mountain would be tied to the grand opening of the renovated Center in the Square, said Ginger Poole, the nonprofit's managing director.

Mill Mountain is also adding a new weekly attraction. No Shame Theatre, the anything-goes late Friday night improvisational format, will debut 11 p.m. May 28 on the Trinkle Main Stage in a homecoming of sorts. Roanoke's No Shame program started in 2003 on Mill Mountain's Waldron Stage and stayed there until the theater abruptly went dark in January 2009.

Mounting debt problems led to the theater's shutdown. Since then Mill Mountain's education program, which offers stage performance classes, has been the theater's only active component. Poole, who teaches those classes, eventually became the sole employee.

The theater's liabilities at the time it went dark were reported to be about $700,000. Some of the debt was paid off and some was forgiven by creditors, though board members and staff declined to discuss specifics.

The theater has brought money in through the classes and by renting the stage. The children's production that Mill Mountain produced in December, "Annie Jr.," also proved to be a moneymaker, Poole said.

Much will be different when Mill Mountain begins its new season.

Mill Mountain, which was founded about 40 years ago, still intends to be an equity theater once it restarts -- meaning it will continue to use paid professional actors who are members of the Actors Equity Association -- but the theater will be in a different contract category that requires three union professionals in its productions rather than seven. Nonetheless, "we will be a professional regional theater again," Poole said.

There also won't be as many productions per year as before. "It's going to be a smarter, slicker season," Poole added.

And Mill Mountain will actively seek to host shows by other theater groups and arts organizations, a break from a previous tendency to be "stingy" with its stage, Poole said, to keep audiences coming in even when the theater isn't putting on one of its own productions.

Anderson pointed to the return of No Shame Theatre as an example of how Mill Mountain intends to collaborate with other theater programs. No Shame is the brainchild of Todd Ristau, head of the Playwright's Lab at Hollins University.

Lawrence said Mill Mountain hopes to reopen with a summer musical in 2012, though much will depend on both fundraising and the state of Center's planned $27 million renovation.

"It's been a long road and will continue to be, but we are extremely excited about our progress and committed to getting MMT back in business," Lawrence said.